KotNR Players Guide
Category:Knights of the New Republic =KotNR Player's Guide= Game Style Info *This game will have a cinematic style requiring the players to bear witness to and participate in certain events for things to make sense. However, I don't want players who feel restrained, or as if they are only following the GM's lead from plot point to plot point. *This game wants for players and characters for whom "it is there" is all the justification required for climbing "it", whatever "it" may be. If you run into a derilect space station ancient beyond all known civilization, saying "oooh, neat" and flying away is only going to frustrate me, which will result in nobody having fun. *This game wants for players and characters (primarily players) who are not offended by sexuality. My Star Wars is not clean and tidy for the sake of coaxing a PG or PG-13 rating out of anybody. I don't shy away from violence, nor shall I shy away from sex, when and if it should be mentioned or shown. The game certainly will not devolve into an erotically-roleplayed orgy, mind, but the game hungers for mature players who can accept, live with, and even enjoy such events/sights when and if they happen. *The game will not feature exclusively canon events. If it were, you'd be better served by purchasing a copy of Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy, from which I draw a lot of inspiration, and getting a graphically-fueled lightsabering powerhouse of a game instead of playing KotNR. **It will not feature only canon starships or equipment, either. The first space vehicles you get will not be canon vehicles; they are, however, quite good, I assure you. (They are the MandalMotors Reek and MandalMotors Nexu.) The Game The year is 23 ABY. The players are all (or almost all) students at Luke Skywalker's new Jedi Praxeum, and the Second Imperium Crisis is about to come to a head. In recent memory, the Jedi Academy has been embroiled in turmoil as it's darling rascal troublemakers, the Solo twins and their friend Lowbacca had been kidnapped off Lando Calrissian's GemDiver station. Attempts were made to brainwash them into becoming new wannabe Sith (calling themselves dark Jedi), but finally they were rescued by Luke Skywalker and their other friend, Tenal Ka, escaping together aboard a custom vessel named the Shadow Chaser and bringing back news of the impending attack. The game starts with that impending attack in full swing: Stormtroopers landing around the Praxeum, and the Jedi Knights, Masters, and the more capable students deploying themselves to defend the temple. The players will be one such group of students - the older, more capable Jedi students. Either you're the type who's been at the Academy a long time and have been entrusted with building your own lightsabers by now, or you may be relatively new students to the Academy, but possessing backgrounds outside the Academy that are sufficient to convince the Masters you're experienced enough to fight in defense of your home. Where things go from there will be seen. Obviously, the Second Imperium will most likely be driven off, but then things get interesting. The Jedi Order doesn't let attacks upon it's own go uninvestigated. The players will be the young Jedi responsible for many of these investigations, under the tutelage of Jaden Korr and Kyle Katarn. Character Concept Rules This game is a Jedi-oriented game. Specifically, the player characters are either Jedi-in-training at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Temple on Yavin IV, or astromech droids owned by the Jedi Praxeum. This should not be construed to restrict the mechanical classes that players may take, but it does place some additional requirements on those humanoids whose first levels are not in Jedi. Every organic character must begin the game with, at minimum, the Force-Sensitive feat. If you wouldn't get it from your class (and if you're not a Jedi, you won't,) or race, you must take it with your first-level feat. This is non-negotiable. Player characters who do not have the Weapon Proficiency (Lightsabers) feat will not get a lightsaber. It's that simple. (On the other flipper, when and if you do get said feat, you will automatically recieve a lightsaber without having to pay the cost of it.) Characters who do not build a lightsaber will not get promoted to the in-character rank of Jedi Knight, no matter their level. (Fair warning.) Characters are strongly advised to be trained in piloting, or take the Force Pilot Sense-Tree Talent. This game will feature high-flying action as well as epic lightsaber duels. However, players should not attempt to purchase any starcraft or airspeeders at the beginning of the game. They will be destroyed by fiat with no compensation given, nor remorse felt. (Fairly warned ye be; Landspeeders and speeder bikes are safe.) One Droid character (at most) will be allowed - however, it must be an Astromech droid of some stripe or another. Droid characters are assumed to be owned by the Jedi Order unless they are specifically property of another player. As property of the Jedi Order, droid heros who accompany Jedi characters and groups may be given a variety of tasks, entrusted with sensitive data, carry mission-vital programming or equipment packages, or simply be pressed into service flying as a starfighter's astromech. As such, they are given a lot of leeway, and almost never subjected to memory wipes. Droid characters under the aegis of the Jedi Order may be illegally modified to bear and fire weapons, but they are expected to be extremely circumspect about the circumstances in which they do so. Jedi Expectations If you're playing a Jedi (which means anyone who's not playing a droid), you're going to be expected to behave like a Jedi. This is the NJO era, mind, so there's plenty of room for nontraditional Jedi and unorthodox soloutions here - Kyle Katarn, for example, is more likely to be found drinking a Corellian Ale in a seedy cantina next to the likes of Han Solo and Dash Rendar than he is to be found meditating atop the temple (though you can find him doing both.) Jaden Korr dresses in manners that would make most Twi'lek dancing girls envious, Raynar Thul is the son of very wealthy trading magnates, and so forth and so on. These are wild and wooly times, and there's room for wild and wooly Jedi. You can even flirt with the grey side a bit, it won't kill you (just don't overdo it.) But Jedi at the heart you must be; extremely out-of-line behavior will be dealt with in-character, and at the extreme may result in the complete loss of a character who has Fallen, turned traitor to the New Republic, and so forth. While there are no hard pronouncements on age, your characters are learners; with some experiance under their belts, but, as they say, "You are not a Jedi, yet." (Despite what your character sheet says. :) ) Characters should be fairly young unless you have a really good explaination otherwise - mid-teens to early twenties, as humans reckon time, is probably best, 15 or 16 being ideal with a normal idea. Droid Expectations Droids in the campaign are almost certainly going to be owned by the Jedi Temple. This means you may well wind up taking orders from PCs and NPCs - you're in good company, though. If a PC is told to hop to by Master Skywalker, they had better hop to, just as you had better; so don't feel too bad. Droids in the campaign will almost certainly be technical specialists first and foremost, but Jedi get sent into some Wookie-strength hairballs, and they may be required to drag a droid with skills they lack along. (Katarn will be the first to bemoan the number of times a skilled slicer in the form of R2-D2 would have saved him a whole heaping helping of headache.) Therefor, droids will be permitted to be armed with blasters, stunners, or what-have-you incorporated into their chassis, at the GM's permittance. (You're not getting anything ridiculously illegal like a Tenloss disruptor, for example.) However, droids are expected to be circumspect in the application of their weapons; basically, held to the same or higher standards as Jedi characters. If the nature of the events in question is obviously hostile (Storming a facility owned by terrorists, fending off an attack on the Academy,) then by all means, you are more than welcome to fire at will. However, in more... Delicate situations (such as being in any form of public), restraint is preferred - stun settings only unless given the go-ahead to shoot by a Jedi, waiting for a Jedi to tell you to engage if any Jedi are nearby, and the like. Droids who violate these restrictions will be subjected to the same investigation as Jedi who slice and dice in the streets. You may be found to have acted appropriately if the situation was dire enough, but too many incidents may result in in-character action being taken; the removal of lethal weapons from your character, the fixing of a restraining bolt, or even (as a last resort) a memory wipe, effectively removing the droid character from the game. Unsuitable Races Several races are simply unsuitable for play in such a game. Races not on this list may regretfully be deemed unsuitable, but if it appears on this list, it is definitively unsuitable and will not be approved under any circumstances. * Anzati * Hutt * Gammorean * Any form of shapeshifter, including but not limited to ** Shi'do ** Clawdite Character Incapcitation At times, players may become incapcitated for long peroids of time during sequences in the game which take multiple sessions but occur in a short amount of time In-Character. (The most obvious way for this to happen is for a character to be brought to death's door by injury and require healing time; incarceration is always possible, too.) I will not be lenient in allowing characters to make magical recoveries, especially not when the events resulting in the character's incapcitation are judged to be a result of a negligence on the players' parts (inciting a riot and becoming greviously injured as a result, for example). However, I can certainly sympathize with the anger of being effectively removed from the game for a number of sessions. Therefor, the concept of the 'loaner' PC will be introduced: Traveling generally with the group shall be an astromech droid with an extreme case of disassociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder.) If a player's normal character is rendered unable to continue for a long peroid of time, they may take command of this droid (or a seriously variant personality thereof which they may maintain as another character sheet) in order to continue adventuring with the group. (The droid may be available for other circumstances, depending on what the majority of the rest of the group thinks.) There is only one such droid available. Should it be damaged beyond continuing, unavailable due to seperation from the group (and being in a place where it cannot contribute to the adventure despite being seperated) or more than one PC taken out of play, there will be no second loaner. Sorry. The Force and You I've had questions about this, so I'll do my best to answer them here. I am not draconian about assigning Dark Side Points. I will not hand out DSPs for using the Force to harm another being, unless you use an explicitly Side power. I won't hand out DSPs for, say, throwing bad guys off buildings, or using the Force to command a person to tell the truth, or to let you through a roadblock or something. Dark Side Score increases are for greviously bad deeds. Unless you go out of your way to ham up the evilness/meanness/anger/hatred/whatever behind your actions, I err on the side of caution. In general, if it would be acceptable to do it with a lightsaber, or a blaster, it's acceptable to do with Move Object or Force Choke or whatever. Like any tool, the Force is only generally bad if you use it badly. Automatic Dark Side Score increases However, some things are going to be worth DSPs. Things such as: *Using Side powers. *Attacking something or someone who is non-threatening, is surrendered, is helpless, or similar. **Helpless opponents are a sticky case. In Episode III, Mace Windu was going to execute Senator Palpatine. Would he have gained a DSP for that? Yes, but not because he was pondering attacking a 'helpless' old man. Palpatine was anything but helpless, having personally erased five of the six Jedi Masters who had been sent to arrest him, Mace correctly understood that he was a threat. Mace Windu was scared and angry in that scene, which is why he would've gotten the DSS increase. Attacking an opponant who is asleep is always going to be a DSP-worthy event. Killing someone who has proven a proclivity for escaping custody and becoming battle-ready in short order? Not nessessarily. You're not required to be Lawful Stupid just because someone throws down their Lightsaber and utters the phrase "I surrender!" *Torture (for any reason). *Using the Force in Darkly ways, such as hamming up fear, anger, hatred, pride, jealousy, greed, vengeance, things such as that. *Betraying one's allies. This one is a bit sticky - is it betrayal to lie and schmooze your way into the confidence of the bad guys in order to attack them from within or get information on them? No, it is not. On the other hand, turning coat against one's real allies - the Republic, the Jedi Order, one's fellow PCs - will be worth a DSS increase (not to mention, if a really serious betrayal, be grounds for automatic removal from the game.) Things which are not automatic Dark Side Score increases. It's worth mentioning that these things are not nessessarily automatic Dark Side Score increases. *Using the Force for gain. In Episode I, Qui-Gon Jin blatantly cheats at a game of Chance. As this was quite nessessary in order to continue, he got no DSS for it. Using the Force for greedy gain, however - to get yourself a new set of armor, to 'work' the stock markets via farseeing, things of that nature - are DSS-worthy. *Attacking from surprise. It's a bit of a wriggly distinction, but if someone is armed and dangerous, you perfectly well can take them out if they don't know abiout you. *Theft is not automatically worth a DSS increase. Again, it depends on the reasoning behind it. Stealing something of vital importance from enemies is obviously not going to be worthy of a Dark Side increase. Neither will, say, relieving fallen/defeated enemies of their things. Stealing from uninvolved parties is very iffy, however - it depends on why, exactly, but it's very iffy. *Sex, love, and relationships. A lot of people think that Jedi are chaste, this is just not so. **Some more notes on sex and relationships. They are certainly not automatically worth DSS increases. Jedi are fallable, like every other living being, but still, sex, love, relationships like that aren't a failure at all! Rather, what is a failing is the way that such high-running emotions can turn bad - enjoying sex for it's own sake can turn into callous usury of vulnerable sentients for personal gratification. Love can lead one very easily to the Dark Side if one becomes convinced that their lovers are in danger (as happened to one particularly infamous Jedi Knight,) and relationships can turn possessive and ugly. *Use of Mind-Affecting powers are not automatic Dark Side increases. **Some GMs hold that, for instance, using the Force to command someone to do something they're unwilling to do, even if it's the right thing, is an unacceptable use of the Force. This is bollocks. Taking away someone's free will is very, very dicey, but it's not automatically Evil. Ordering someone to tell the truth in court, for instance, is not an automatic DSP. Ordering someone to kill themselves is - if you can successfully order them to do something, you can order them to surrender instead. Ignorance and Negligence Accidents happen in a role-playing game. Something someone considers to be 'common sense' is something another is clueless about. Ignorance vs. Negligence causes a lot of the pitfalls players might find themselves coming into. So, here's the distinction. *Ignorance is not knowing. If you do something that would ordinarily be grounds for a Dark Side Score increase, out of sheer ignorance, provided you are genuinely remorseful when you learn of it's effects, you are innocent of wrongdoing - and thus, of a DSSI. For instance, if you're trying to release prisoners from an Imperial Cell Block and enthuesiastically slam the big red button which is unmarked, believing it to be the 'open cells' button, and it turns out to be the 'execute prisoners' button, causing explosives in all the cells to detonate, you're an ignorant idiot, but not worthy of a Dark Side Score Increase. **Being mind-controlled is ignorance. If someone is forcing you to do something not of your own free will, you're blameless in the matter. *Negligence is not caring. If you know that big red buttons in Imperial Cell Blocks are often the 'execute prisoners' button and you hit it anyway (and now you know that, by the way, not that it shouldn't have been pretty damn obvious,) then you're criminally negligent, and your callousness is worthy of a Dark Side Score increase, which you will be recieving promptly. **Duress is not Ignorance, but Negligence. If someone orders you to kill someone, or he will kill ten people, it's not okay to kill the one person! This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, granted - get a DSS and murder an innocent man, or refuse and allow someone else to cause much greater harm - but it's still not a "just do it for I have no choice in the matter" situation. Not that they're likely to come up often, mind, but be aware that while extreme duress may be a legal excuse, but it's not an excuse as far as the Force is concerned. ***Bad guys love the sadistic choice for just this reason, so let me spell it out: You are not culpable, as far as the Force is concerned, for acts another commits if you cannot reasonably prevent it. If you're armed, and the bad guy is holding your friend hostage, and orders you to execute someone or he'll kill your friend, you're responsible if you kill the man. You're also responsible if you simply let him kill your friend - in this kind of situation, you are obligated to Take a Third Option and attack the bad guy, even if hopelessly outgunned/outnumbered. If, on the other hand, you have no means of resisting - say, if he's ordering you through a holo-link and you don't have a way to affect him - you're not responsible, even if you refuse and he kills your friend. I won't throw these at the players willy nilly, as I don't feel a reason to stroke my own ego that way, but I wanted to make it clear, because if a Sith Lord gets a good chance to pull this one on a Jedi, he'll probably take it. Category:Knights of the New Republic